Not long after returning to the courtyard, Chen Miao went straight to his room to rest.
Half an hour after Chen Miao fell asleep, a face slowly began to emerge on the cabinet in his room.
The face was made of the same material as the cabinet, looking like a decoration deliberately carved into its surface.
But decorations did not move. This face did.
After scanning the room, the face fixed its gaze on Chen Miao, who lay on the bed with his back to the cabinet.
Then the face began to protrude, little by little.
A neck, a torso, and limbs squeezed out of the cabinet door one after another.
Only when the last part of the body left the cabinet did the cabinet's color fade from it.
An unremarkable middle-aged man with an expressionless face stood beside Chen Miao's bed.
Without moving his head, the man lowered his eyes to look down at Chen Miao, whose back was turned to him.
As the man raised his right hand, sharp wooden spikes emerged one after another from the wooden bed frame beneath Chen Miao's mattress.
The spikes silently pierced the mattress, slowly rising around Chen Miao's body and intertwining into a cage of wooden thorns.
Looking at his handiwork, the middle-aged man finally smiled.
His right hand, which had remained open, finally clenched.
With that motion, countless sharp wooden spikes thrust inward from every part of the cage surrounding Chen Miao.
Even as he closed his hand, the middle-aged man turned to return to the cabinet.
But he froze halfway through the turn.
The delightful sound of spikes piercing flesh never came, nor did the sickly sweet scent of blood.
After a moment's hesitation, the man plunged headfirst into the cabinet and vanished.
No sooner had he left than